Three Dioceses Choose New Bishops
Episcopal News Service. June 30, 1983 [83126]
NEW YORK (DPS, June 30) -- The Rt. Rev. C. Judson Child, the Rev. Leopold Frade and the Rev. Donis D. Patterson have all been elected diocesan bishops in June.
Child, suffragan bishop of Atlanta, was elected to succeed the Rt. Rev. Bennett Sims as bishop of that Diocese in an election June 25. Child was elected on the opening ballot -- the first time that has ever happened in Atlanta.
On the same day, Patterson was chosen -- on the fourth ballot -- as Bishop of Dallas to fill the vacancy created when the Rt. Rev. A. Donald Davies resigned to take over jurisdiction of the new Diocese of Fort Worth.
Frade, a member of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, was elected Bishop of Honduras early in June.
Two other dioceses -- Rochester and South Dakota -- held elections in June but neither was able to reach a concensus.
Frade gained a somewhat unsought prominence when he and a brother priest, the Rev. Joseph Doss, were arrested, tried and convicted in federal court for "trading with the enemy" in bringing 435 refugees from Frade's native Cuba at the tag end of the 1980 Mariel boatlift. Although all the people they brought in found sponsors quickly -- many with families already here -- the Reagan administration Justice Department prosecuted the case vigorously to "make an example" of them. Their conviction is under appeal in the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court and Presiding Bishop John M. Allin and the Council have been active supporters of their cause through legal briefs and personal appeals.
Frade, 39, is vicar of the Church of La Esperanza in Orlando, Fla. and a graduate of Candler College in Havana, Biscayne College in Miami and the School of Theology of the University of the South. He was awarded an honorary doctoral degree from General Theological Seminary in 1982 and, the same year, was elected to the Executive Council. He is married and the father of two children.
Child, 60, was elected suffragan of Atlanta in 1977 after ten years as canon pastor at St. Phillip's Cathedral there. He is a native of New Jersey and served parishes there after completing his undergraduate and theological degrees at the University of the South. He is a member of the Standing Commission on Church Music and chaired the House of Bishops's Music Committee at the last General Convention, in which role he was often seen leading deputies and bishop in song.
Patterson, rector of All Saints Church in Winter Park, Fla., is a graduate of Ohio State University and the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Mass. He was rector of St. Andrew's Church in Washington Court House, Ohio for 6 years before going to Florida as rector of St. Mark's, Venice. He served that parish from 1967 until 1970 when he was called to his present parish. He is active in diocesan and civic affairs and has chaired the National Renewal Conference. He is a chaplain with the rank of colonel in the U. S. Army Reserve.